“We haven’t got quite so far yet,” Monjoy replied, rising from the low stool; and James Eastwood gave a low whistle.
Presently Matthew Moon shoved out his lip.
“Pshaw! It’s a ballad, Arthur, a ballad,” he said.
“What do you say, John?” Monjoy demanded of Raikes in the window-seat.
“Tell us some more; it’s grand,” murmured Raikes.
“Very well; now take this in. Within this ten years money’s been put up in Lancashire to open Bulmer’s workings again. Reason they didn’t do it, it was blabbed, and the excise pricked up its ears. They prayed for a patent for lead, but that wasn’t what they wanted. They’d have mixed their ores and done the Dutchmen’s trick; but as soon as that pays and the excise wakes up, pff!—it’s a Mine Royal at once.”
“If they stopped it in Lancashire, they’d stop it here,” Eastwood said thoughtfully.
“In Back o’ th’ Mooin?” said Monjoy, meaningly; and there was a long silence, broken only by the sound of the leaves of the ledger that Matthew Moon turned over at arms-length.
Suddenly he closed the ledger with a flap.
“Ah, well!” he observed, “then we’ve only to walk there and get it.”